Maybe he’s countersignalling, deliberately offering a superficially-negative signal in order to signal that he doesn’t need to send the “expected” superficially-positive signal. See this article, also by Yvain.
Maybe he’s countersignalling, deliberately offering a superficially-negative signal in order to signal that he doesn’t need to send the “expected” superficially-positive signal. See this article, also by Yvain.